Four Wrestlers To Head to NCAAs

Though the Harvard wrestling team may have won six times as many dual matches last year, this year the team managed to put its best effort when it really counted—the EIWA tournament. The Crimson finished in seventh place and sent four grapplers to the NCAA tournament, double last season’s total.

Co-captains Reggie Lee (197 lbs.) and No. 1 Jesse Jantzen (149 lbs.) along with No. 12 sophomore Max Meltzer (141 lbs.) and freshman Bode Ogunwole (HWT) all locked up national championship bids with their performances. Jantzen carried the day with his third straight EIWA title while the other three each finished in third place.

The overall team performance from Harvard (1-14, 1-7 EIWA) of 64.5 points fell just short of the fifth and sixth place teams, Army and Navy, which scored just 2.5 and 1.5 points ahead of the Crimson, respectively. No. 8 Lehigh won its third straight tournament with 145 points, while No. 18 Penn squeaked by No. 15 Cornell by two points—120.5-118.5—to capture second.

Those three teams were also the only ones to send more wrestlers to the NCAA tournament, since Rutgers, Navy and Army—all of which finished ahead of the Crimson—only sent two or three each. And of the six teams that Harvard had faced this year that finished below the team in the standings, it had only beaten one—Princeton, which finished in 10th place.

Jantzen’s performance also won him the Fletcher Award, given to the wrestler who earns the most points for his team in the tournament in his career, and made him the first grappler in Harvard history to earn four straight NCAA tournament bids and three conference championships.

“He did a real nice job of keeping up pressure and being solid,” Harvard coach Jay Weiss said.

Jantzen clinched the title when he defeated Brown’s No. 17 David Dies, 5-2, whom Jantzen beat in his last dual match of the year, 6-5. In his previous bout, Dies had upset Cornell’s No. 5 Dustin Manotti, 1-0.

“It was only a three-point win but it wasn’t close,” Lee said. “Dies didn’t even try anything the whole match. Jesse just pounded him.”

Lee’s qualification provided a bit more drama than Jantzen’s did. He was first knocked down to the consolation round by Navy’s Thayer Paxton—seeded one spot behind Lee in the tournament—on a 5-4 decision that was decided by riding time. After winning three straight matches, however, Lee found himself again wrestling against Paxton for the third-place match and a guaranteed trip to the NCAA tournament. This time Lee took the match 7-4.

“It basically came down to me forcing my own action,” Lee said, who scored three takedowns and an escape. “A trip to Nationals was on the line.”

Despite the loss and a fourth-place finish, Paxton ended up qualifying for Nationals with a wild-card berth.

Meltzer, on the other hand, was on the losing end of the rematch game. Though he had defeated Penn’s No. 13 Doug McGraw earlier in the season 3-1, this time Meltzer lost to him 11-6, ending up in the consolation round. McGraw later went on to win the tournament, defeating Lehigh’s No. 4 Cory Cooperman, while Meltzer came in third with a 3-1 win over Navy’s Nate Gulosh.

Ogunwole, the final Harvard NCAA qualifier, was another wrestler to be sent into the consolation round by the eventual winner in his weight class. Ogunwole lost to Penn’s No. 2 Matt Feast 5-3, but was the only wrestler in the tournament to score a takedown against him.

“He’s a monster,” Lee said of Ogunwole. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he placed at NCAAs. [The] kid’s that good.”

Senior P.J. Jones (184 lbs.)—who sat out the last three dual meets due to an ankle injury but was healthy enough to wrestle in the tournament—ended his season on a disappointing note, when he had to withdraw from the tournament after suffering a concussion in his third match.

“That’s just a shame that he had to end his career that way,” Weiss said. “He didn’t really get a chance to finish it on the mat.”

Lee, Jantzen, Meltzer and Ogunwole will return to action in two weeks when they travel to St. Louis, Mo. for the NCAA tournament, which runs from March 18-20.

—Staff writer Evan R. Johnson can be reached at erjohns@fas.harvard.edu.